


And Were You Also Then Too Grave and Wise?

by biextroverts



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, F/F, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 19:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13981749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biextroverts/pseuds/biextroverts
Summary: Despite their shared intellectual gifts and their mutual love of science, neither Raven nor Emori really expect to enjoy the Women's Technology Program. Then they meet each other.





	And Were You Also Then Too Grave and Wise?

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to wait until I'd finished the second chapter of this story to publish the first one, but the trailer came out yesterday and now I'm all hyped up about my girls again.
> 
> Title is from "On the Road to the Sea" by Charlotte Mew.

_jazzmatazz: how’s science camp?_

          Raven emits a groan and rolls her eyes. _it’s not science camp,_ she types, for what must be at least the millionth time since she told her friends she was considering applying to the program back in December, _it’s the women’s technology program in mechanical engineering. at mit._

_engineering=science. program=camp. therefore, science camp._

_shut up, jasper._

          Raven leans back against the thin pillow at the head of the bed and shuts her eyes. She can hear shouts and laughter from down the hallway, the sounds of icebreakers and bonding taking place, but the relative silence of her own room allows her also to appreciate the quietly insistent throbbing of her temples– she’s sure she’s not the farthest traveled of the girls with whom she’s being made to share a dorm for the next month, but the eight hours she’d spent in the passenger seat of Sinclair’s beaten-up blue Subaru yesterday, travelling north up I-95, had done a number on her head. Dazedly, she reaches up to massage her temporal pulse points, but the pressure of her fingertips only intensifies her pounding headache. She almost wishes she were hungover – at least then she’d have gotten something out of her present misery.

          Raven _hates_ long car trips.

          A buzzing from her phone indicates a new text, and Raven reaches blindly towards her lap, pawing about between her legs to retrieve it. When she does, she brings it back towards her and opens her eyes. It’s Jasper again, although thankfully not still on his science camp kick:

_fr, tho. how’s things?_

          The pounding in Raven’s skull recedes slightly, and her lips curl up to one side in a weak half-smile. For all his goofiness, Jasper is a genuine friend, and has been ever since Raven met him and his boyfriend Monty through Kids After Hours on the pair’s first day of kindergarten (her first day of first grade) almost eleven years ago.

 _fine, mostly,_ she types. _killer headache, but i’m settling in._

_how’s the roommate?_

          At that, her half-smile widens to a genuine grin. _not here yet, thank god,_ she types. Then, _if i’m lucky she’ll have backed out last minute and i won’t have one at all. i haven’t had a room to myself in. ever._

 _rip in peace :(((_ Jasper texts. _gl, rae. g2g, tho – i have to beat murphy on rainbow road. ttyl!_

 _kick his ass for me,_ Raven types, adding in a few punching fist emojis for effect. She no longer bears John Murphy any real ill will for his role in the events that resulted in the partial paralysis of her left leg, but she enjoys reminding him once in a while that he’s not as universally adored for his “sparkling wit and extraordinary charm” as he likes to think. Really, she’s doing him a favor by poking holes in the swollen balloon that is his ego – and it’s not like he can’t give as good as he gets.

         The sound of the handle turning and the door opening startles Raven from her musings, and she straightens up, setting her phone down beside her on the mattress and looking up to find a girl with a duffle bag slung over her shoulder watching Raven from the doorway. She looks like exactly the kind of girl Raven hates most, with her faded denim short-shorts and her fitted white tank, but there’s something intelligent and real behind her dark eyes, and the leather jacket in the pockets of which her hands are buried is definitely not standard summer attire for the beach-bound bitches at Raven’s school.

         “Who are you?” Raven asks.

         “Who are _you_?” the girl retorts.

         Raven crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head. “Nuh-uh. You’re in my room, you answer first.”

         The girl’s right hand slides out of her pocket, and she dangles a keyring in front of Raven’s face. Raven can’t make out the number written on the little tag that hangs alongside the key from this distance, but the gesture gets the point across just fine: it’s not just her room anymore.

         Fuck.

         “That bed’s yours,” Raven says, jutting her chin to indicate the unmade bed across from her own, as though it weren’t the only other bed in the room. The other girl offers a sharp nod and moves to set her bag on the hard, bare mattress, unzipping the duffle in one smooth motion once it’s down and beginning to unpack her things. There’s a practiced ease to each and every one of her movements as she removes and folds and places her possessions that rivals Raven’s own hard-won manual dexterity.

          “I’m Raven,” Raven says, almost despite herself – she’s never especially liked or trusted new people, but it’s only gotten worse since the accident, because now she can’t so much as ask a stranger at the bus stop for the time without incurring a barrage of invasive questions about her brace, her limp, her fucking _struggle_. Come to think of it, it’s odd that the other girl – her roommate– hasn’t yet infringed upon her privacy, given the visual prominence of her dark, bulky brace against the tawny skin of her bare lower leg.

         The other girl turns back and looks at Raven. She has a gaze like a whirlpool, and Raven feels as though she’s being sucked in and deconstructed, darkest secrets exposed like the innards of an autopsy patient. It makes her stomach churn and the hair on her arms and on the back of her neck stand on end, but there’s something magnetic to it as well, something that keeps Raven from looking away or even moving a muscle as the other girl’s eyes burn a hole straight through everything she is. Finally, she blinks, just slowly enough to be unnerving; when she opens her eyes again, however, the abrasiveness behind them is gone.

          “Emori,” the other girl says before returning to her unpacking.

          Raven nods; although Emori’s back is to her, she still feels as though she’s being watched. There’s something to the way Emori’s shoulder blades press towards each other, the way every part of her but her hands is held as still as the body of a predator waiting for the opportunity to pounce, that lets Raven know Emori isn’t simply lost in her thoughts, uninterested in Raven’s presence. Raven picks up her phone, muscles tense, prepared to set it back down and flee if Emori turns around again, and selects Clarke Griffin from her list of contacts.

_yo clarke you’ve done sleepaway shit before what do you do if your bunkmate/roommate/ whatever is possibly a psychopath?_

          True to Clarke’s fastidious nature, a gray bubble pops up almost as soon as Raven’s text registers as sent. A moment later, a message appears:

_clarke gayble: you good raven?_

_what do you think?_

_i’m sure your roommate isn’t a psychopath is what i think. please don’t let your aversion to strangers ruin your program for you!!!_

_she’s going to kill me in my sleep clarke_

_and what evidence do you have of this?_

_she creeps me out_

_that isn’t evidence. please enjoy your program for me – i’ve gotta go give a speech on agricultural subsidies rn, but i love u!_

_good luck on your nerd speech,_ Raven types, which is about as close to “I love you” as she gets. She glances back over at Emori, who’s shoveling piles of neatly folded tank tops and t-shirts into her chest of drawers.

          “I’m heading out,” Raven announces, sliding off of her bed and slipping her phone into the pocket of her athletic shorts. She doesn’t have a campus map, or a clue where she’s going, but she needs to not be around people for a while longer.

          Emori looks up. “Okay,” she says. Again, her eyes draw Raven in, and Raven has to blink several times to clear her head. Only when Emori has returned to her work can Raven grab her keys where they hang by the side of her desk and clear the room, hurrying through the shout- and laughter-filled hallway and down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor with her head down and her shoulders drawn, the tension that comes from being around other people sizzling like a stimulant in her veins.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos and comments; I live for feedback!


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